We’re big fans of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy here at ShowMeSciFi.com – and we’ve been hesitant to pick up book six – And Another Thing…- the first non-Douglas Adams instalment.

As it turns out – and another thing – is feckin Froody.

No it’s not a Douglas Adams masterpiece, but it is good fun and an enjoyable read.

The story picks up where the last one left off, with the destruction of the Earth (yet again). And yeaah Zaphod, yet again helps Arthur and Ford out.

The characters are much the same as Adams left them and Eoin Colfer does an admirable job of keeping them alive – even as the Vogons try and eliminate them.

The return of Wowbager – the alien that goes around insulting people is neat – but wowbagger just doesn’t have the same edge he did under Adams authorship — but then again it’s still fun.

We see Thor – the Thunder God – return and a really fun visit by Zaphod to the Aesir that we laughed our way through. The ‘second Earth’ Nano plotline in this book was also alot of fun and well written.

Throughout it all, we – and Arthur – miss his beloved Fennchurch – but she keeps popping up in …different way. Especially at the end, which in our view was a stroke of complete brillance.

That’s the good – the bad – which does exist in this book – comes in the form of the guide entries – which aren’t written like Guide entries – and just come off as being ..well..STOOPID. After the third or fourth guide entry that appears in this book, we actually started to just skip them altogether –which in our view made the book better and more enjoyable to read.

hitchhikers books have never been known for keeping consistent plotlines – but there are a few things that we would have liked to have seen. For one, the new MarkII Guide makes an appearance at the beginning of the book and then just goes away…that’s dumb.

The Guide itself has been taken over by Vogons (from the last book) but somehow Ford is still writing for them and little if any mention is made of how the Vogons have changed the book – that’s a real flaw in our view.

All in all though, this is a fun book and we’re glad that we had the opporunity to read it. It brings us back to that FROODY universe that Douglas Adams introduced us too 30 years ago and reminds us why we miss him so very much.